Occupational Noise Exposure Among Road Construction Workers

Abstract

This study aims to evaluate noise exposure and prevalence of hearing loss among typical road construction workers. Personal noise dosimeter was used to obtain the noise exposure profile of heavy equipment operators that are working on various stages; road work, trade work and pavement work. Symptoms of hearing loss among workers were observed through interview session. It was a degradation in human hearing ability. Workers with symptoms of hearing loss may have problem in understanding speech or conversation. There are 73 construction workers that were evaluated, 60 of them are machine’s operators, 7 are site supervisors and 6 are premix workers. The results show that in road works stage there are 6.9% workers exposed to action level ≥85 dBA and 1.4% workers exposed to noise ≥90 dBA. 4.1% workers from trade work and 13.7% workers from pavement work were exposed to noise ≥85 dBA. There are 5.48% of workers from pavement work exposed to hazard level of noise with only 2.74% of worker used Hearing Protection Devices (HPD). There is a prevalence of symptoms of hearing loss among workers with 45% of workers from road works, 32% from trade works and 23% from pavement stage. These exposed workers suggested to have an audiometric testing program annually in order to identify deterioration in their hearing ability as early as possible.

Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of People Working in Construction Sites Towards Noise Induced Hearing Loss

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Effective Engineering Noise Control Strategies with the Stochastic Noise Mapping Simulation Method: A Case Study in Palm Oil Mill

“…In Japan, a study estimated that millions of workers were exposed to high noise levels in their workplaces with more than 40 dB hearing loss at 4 kHz (Miyakita and Ueda, 1997). Prolonged noise exposure has been associated with a range of adverse auditory and non-auditory effects, including noise-induced hearing loss, tinnitus, disorders of the endocrine systems and the nervous, mental distress, sleep disturbance, stress, annoyance, cognitive deficits, low performance, high blood pressure, and speech interruption (Thurston, 2012;Said et al, 2014;Milerová et al, 2013;Zeydabadi et al, 2019;Hosseinabadi et al, 2019;Alnabih et al, 2021). Exposure to high noise levels may additionally increase the number of work-related accidents experienced by workers (Choi et al, 2005).…”

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